


Memories

by slytherkain



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Character Death, F/F, Post-Canon, i deleted all the tags on this, jroth can smd, just to retag it, this isnt canon compliant
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-06
Updated: 2017-11-22
Packaged: 2018-05-25 02:02:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6175966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slytherkain/pseuds/slytherkain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clarke relives the past and sees the colours that come with it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. NOT EVERYONE, NOT YOU

_In peace, may you leave this shore._  
_In love, may you find the next._  
_Safe passage on your travels, until our final journey on the ground._  
_May we meet again. —_

* * *

 

Not her.

Never her.

Somehow it was never going to be her. So resilient, strong. Kind too. So much kindness in the face of warring atrocities. And though she knew it was weakness, the teachings did not make her immune to her charm. She had, more than once, scoffed at the notion. Unbelievable. She was not weak, after all.

And yet here, in the harsh light of her tent, she was stunned; floored, by the absolute burst of colour and sound and _feeling_ that this person bought. The way that even the walls, the ground, seemed to shriek and move and want to touch whenever she was here. So used to grey. Years of grey. All was grey; except for her. Eyes of the ocean and a gentle quirk of the flesh pink mouth. A tongue coming out to wet at lips. Hair the colour of straw on mid-summers morning. The whole of her life, littered with grey; Titus. Anya. Gustus. Her mother – and this girl. This Commander of the Sky. She did not match. Costia, dead now, had been similar. Colour. Life. But not like this. No. Clarke did not fit the grey.

Lexa approached. Shifted. Nervous. A twist of her stomach as it burst into a thousand fluttering wings. Too much to take in all at once; and yet not ever enough. Feet moving without consent. Forwards. Backwards. Wherever Clarke was, she followed. Tentative, shaking hands busied with tightening armour. Gauntlets.

Indignant Clarke, angry. A voice inside chided, a shaking finger at the choices she had made. She had sent her solider to kill Octavia; wrong, the voice told her. An inward scoff. She was not willing to risk this all, this war, on _feelings_. The voice chided at her again.

“Yes, you say having feelings makes me weak, but _you’re_ weak for hiding from them. I might be a hypocrite, Lexa, but you’re a liar.”

A tightening of her stomach. The wings of butterflies settling; a roiling, angry sea taking its place. She felt sick. Each name of those she had loved, another knife in her gut. Pressed against the wooden table, hands grabbing for purchase. Terrified. Angry. A hissed order, ignored.

The colour flowed from every inch of Clarke. Every pore, every strand of hair; a hundred thousand shades of everything Lexa admired. Fell weak for. Another stab. Her face mere inches away. The numbers spat, the furrowed brow.

“Not everyone. Not you,” a surprise her voice worked. The ocean in her stomach settling to a gentle lap against the shore. Waiting, watching. It was no more than mere seconds of wait, but it may as well had been an eternity; for all the colours were concerned.  

The way their breaths mingled in the air. A cacophony of smoke to water. All it would take was a yes. Was a confirmation. Was a kiss in the hard light pushing through a tear in the fabric. A side of Clarke’s face lost in it. A future reflected in her eyes; shattered with a shaken breath and denial.

Lexa watched her go. Back straight, a hand grasping at the tables wood before curling in on itself. Eyes cast skyward. A shaky breath. In. Out. Eyes closed to the grey collapsing in around her. A tongue wetting her lips and bringing them in. The voices in her head, chiding once again. A mistake. This was a mistake.

Shaky legs collapsed under her; forcing a seat upon the cold ground. Knees twisted under her. A hand splayed out for balance, security. The other reaching to scratch at her the base of her neck; feeling the raised surface of the Holy Mark. She felt sick again. The roiling currents crashing against her shore without pause.

Love is weakness. Love is weakness. Love is weakness. Love is- colour.

Love is the colour of the ocean reflected in the eyes of Clarke.

Love was weakness and for the first time in her grey life, since the muted colours of Costia, she allowed them to flow back to her; browns and yellows and reds touching at her fingers from the floor below.

A start.

* * *

Air surged back into Clarke’s lungs. Pushed back from being hunched over the computer chip below. Its tendrils unwrapping from her fingers, gently moving across her skin before withdrawing into its shell. It pulsated with light; like the slow thrum of a beating heart. Doing so only when Clarke was nearby. Feeling her presence and revelling in it like a lover beneath lips.

Gently, slowly, as if moving any faster would break her, or it, Clarke moved her fingers along the edges of the small device. Its tendrils did not move for her. The pulsating quickened a moment. Nobody understood why Clarke had demanded to keep it. Defunct now. Useless. The A.I within having served its purpose. A leader chosen by vote – not by blood.

Clarke covered the symbol with her hands, feeling the tendrils stroke at her palms. A shaky breath let out as she closed her eyes again. The thin strings tying themselves around her fingers. A smile graced her features as she allowed herself to be consumed again, the memories pouring at her from within.


	2. MEMORY CORE

_Death is a brief separation._

_A temporary pain._

_Grieve not my dear,_

_The sun will shine again. —_

* * *

Clarke’s fingers hovered, gingerly, over the small computer chip, ‘the spirit of the Commander’. Tired eyes lingered on the curves, the jagged edges, the way the light seemed to be drawn in and pulsated out. A life of its own, tendrils reaching for her fingers; touching and curling before tentatively withdrawing.

If she closed her eyes, and she so often did, she could hear Lexa’s voice whenever it touched at her; could feel a gentle kiss be pressed against her ear, eyelashes fluttering against her skin. It was alive, after all; the last bastion and memory of the one Clarke had dared love.

She was grateful for this room. Dark and hidden away in the tallest reaches of the building. Forgotten about. Dusty and cluttered and dry. Warm. No windows. Only a broken door. Candles littering the floor, their orange glow casting flickering shadows along the clutter. A place she could retreat to, to be alone. To think. To breathe.

A shudder as she settled in for the long night. A blanket woven around her legs. Pillow propped behind her. A breath left to fall from trembling lips as she reached out to touch at the chip again, tendrils reaching back. A precious thing. No bigger than her thumb. A smile crept across her face, sad and happy and so full of love, all wrapped in one. Unwilling eyes drawn to her arm; skin marred by the thick black ink beneath. A homage. Her. Sensitive to touch. Raised just slightly. A reminder.

The tent. The war. That time on the mountain. Their first meeting as rightful Heda’s. It was all clear now; albeit hazy. Like wiping at a mirror of memories fogged over by the steam of time. Clarke was privy to it all, watching from Lexa’s eyes; the past, the present, the potential future. Was able to watch herself fumble and stutter and stare – stare so hard she could feel herself shrink back. Inwardly. Lexa did not back down.

And the _affection_. The way it poured from Lexa. Demanding to be seen. Felt. The way her greys were being influenced by Clarke’s own colours; mingling on the floor and in the air and cascading over them like visceral liquid; sticking to every part and pore and strand of hair. Clarke was impressed by this, not having seen it before. She wondered whether it was a trick of the eyes, played on her by the memory chip. A metaphor. Her colours were always so bright, after all. Vivid greens and blues and reds, twisting and turning and reaching out toward the grey; an innate need to _change._ Always a beacon of hope in Lexa’s memories. A smile crossed her mouth.  

Lexa, at first, had not struck her as anything more than a stoic, unfeeling individual. And certainly not romantic. And yet here, thrumming in the orange glow of the candlelight, were Lexa’s most precious of memories. Brought forward by an intelligence far greater than her own – knowing she needed them, and giving them freely. She often mulled over that; these were not rightfully hers to see. And yet the _thing_ born and bred inside the chip had sought her out, barring anyone but her entry. Beaming in her presence, reaching out to grab and touch and feel. Pouring memories at her faster than she could anticipate, or want. Eager to show her all. Make her understand. It was truly something, and if Clarke were being honest, the intensity of it made her blush.

Oh so softly, she tiredly reached out to touch at the chip again. Feeling it’s warmth beneath her fingers. Letting it touch back, but not enough to draw her in. She wondered where Lexa was, amidst all these memories. Knowing full well that a copy of her, a figment, was still very much _alive_ and sentient within. Was this all just Lexa’s doing? Pushing her control over the A.I to show Clarke what she wanted, needed, to see?

She was meant to be leading her people. The coalition was finally in place. A proper one. A _voted_ one. Free from the effects of the City. Her and Bellamy; whom had come round, fighting with them, losing an arm, and quite nearly an eye. She was meant to be down there, and yet. If they could see her now. Locked away. Hunched over the thing they had all been freed from. Taking pleasure and comfort from it that she could find nowhere else.

Nothing would ever quite be like Lexa; she had realized, years after the fact. Her scent. Her taste. The way she reserved a smile that was only for Clarke; a private one. Seen only a scant few times before it was rudely, painfully ripped away. The way her green eyes, in their downtime, had slowly trawled over Clarke; taking in every inch of her. The way Lexa slept, a book usually cradled in her hands from the night previous. And the colours. Oh, the colours. Every shade and tint and hue that Clarke could ever dream of; each one a different feeling, a different smell, taste, touch, texture, as the last. Green of pines and endless forest, and the _taste_ of calm. Blues that roiled as the deepest of oceans did; anger, jealousy, fear. Magnificent colours and Clarke was only just scratching the surface of them; the memory chip the only connection and the only source of answer.

And so, she let her fingers splay out against the fibres again; feeling them curl around her fingers delicately. A warmth blossomed in her chest the same moment the burst of light emitted in her eyes.


	3. THE REUNION

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Squints. No I didn't leave this fic unfinished I swear.
> 
> EDIT 2017  
> yes i did. maybe ill finish it one day.

_Her eyes are drill-holes where_

_Your senses spin, and you are stone_

_Even as you stand before her—_

* * *

She was lost, for a time, after the mountain. Unsure what to do. Unsure how to feel. Forced to sit and watch as the colours she had only just welcomed back into her life, seeped back into the ground and sky and trees; and the world turn grey once more.

She fretted over her choice. Relived it. Breathed it. Tasted the betrayal on her tongue like a foul acid. Dreamt more than once of the torn look on her face. Woke up in sweat and tears and lungs that couldn’t pull in air.

A week moved by. And then two. Then three. And by the fourth she had resigned herself to her decision. To her deal with the devils. To the bleak world that she had left in her wake.

The rumours had begun some time before that, of course. The Mountain had fallen and she who swung the sword now prowled the forest. Wanheda, they called her. The Commander of Death. A symbol to be both revered and to be made wary of. Look but do not touch, lest death touch you back.

With winter on the horizon and the distant drums of war, she had made her decision. He was employable. Useable. Had the most to gain. And he was formidable – a fake ally to the army of the North. He would bring her back alive and unharmed. That was the deal.

Lexa found herself waiting another week nonetheless. Each passing day added another knot to her stomach. She slept less. Ate less. Found herself pacing mindlessly through her halls, hands wringing together in her front.

The seventh day found her seated on her throne donned in her officials gear. The pauldron felt heavy on her shoulder. Her muscles weak. Bones aged. She could not help the breath that pulled in when the sack covered prisoner was dropped at her feet and revealed. Could not help the way her pupils blew wide when steel met green. Could not help the shake in her legs as she pushed herself to stand.

She could see the anger visibly rolling off Clarke and pooling at her knees. Deep reds and purples and blues, coiling around the blonde. Biting at her throat. At her wrists. Dripping from her fingers like the blood of a fresh kill. A warring conflict of emotions.

She swallowed. Keeping eye contact until she could no longer. Her voice was hard. Relentless. Cold. She sent him away in shackles again. Another lie. Another deal broken. Her stomach lurched at thought but the regret did not reach her face.

The others too, were sent out. Away. Far away. Left only with the one she betrayed and her guards, a safety measure. The knots in her stomach tightened. Threatened her with expulsion. Her teeth clenched hard. Shaking hands rising to remove the gag.

“I’m sorry”

The colours, now pooled around her feet too, hissed at her touch. Withdrawing back into Clarke. Tightening around her legs. Pulsating and growing and changing with every word. Every movement. Every blink of an eye.

She could hear the laboured breaths. Could see the rise and fall of her shoulders. Struggling. Pushing and pulling. If the colours could talk Lexa knew they would be screaming at her. Incoherent and angry. The shift happened almost too quickly for her to grasp. Tendrils became knives. Became swords and daggers. And with the snarl of her lips, Clarke spat in her face.

Her guards were barely quick enough. Another moment would have found her tackled over, teeth at throat. But that was for another life, another time. They were pulling her away, struggling with the girl half their size as she fought against them. Fought to get back to her. The colours, all red now, trailed out behind her, leaving a blood-like smear in their wake.

“You bitch! You wanted the Commander of Death? You’ve got her! I’ll kill you!”

Lexa could not drown out the sounds of her screams as they echoed through the halls, bouncing off the walls and floor and into the sky beyond. She could not move. Could barely breathe; chest heaving as the familiar weight of her decision settled back into her.

She pivoted. Moved towards her balcony. Air. Look away. The colours will go. The screams will stop. Move. Get out.

Outside did not offer her respite. Did not let her breath come easier. Her city below unawares of the war above. She swallowed and let her eyes wander.

All was grey.

She cried.

* * *

Clarke was thrown from the chip with such force that she toppled backwards, landing in the clutter before she could steady herself. The crushing weight of being unable to breathe tangled itself around her body as tears pooled in her eyes. Her heart raced. Her blood pumped through her body with enough of a thud that it drummed in her ears.

The chip retracted into itself. Pulsating quickly, much the same as her own heart, before steadying to its usual slow thrum. She cursed, weakly grasping onto the collar of her shirt as sweat pooled at her neck.

She had been thrown out of the scene by Lexa’s agitated memories. By the crushing weight of the decision she had made to save her people at the price of Clarke’s own. By the intense colours and feelings and heat that had wafted from Clarke to Lexa during that exchange.

Clarke steadied herself. Edging back towards the chip. Her breathing and heart would not calm until she was beside it. And it wasn’t until they were in synch again did Clarke feel brave enough to reach out and touch. Fatigue rushed through her as the coolness of the device spread out under fingers.

When she had started this journey into Lexa’s memories, she had not expected the colours to be a thing. And now, more than ever, she wished she could see the world the same way Lexa had. She imagined the Commander had been blue in that particular time. Blues and blinding whites. Fear and sadness and longing.

Subconsciously she reached to her throat, a clammy hand rubbing up and behind her neck. If she concentrated hard enough she could feel the colours Lexa had lived with seeing. Could feel them wrap around her. Blanket every inch of her.

She let out a staggered sigh as she sat back against the pillow she had propped up some hours earlier. Outside there was silence. The usual ruckus of the day had long since disappeared. Night had fallen past these four walls, of that she was sure.

Her eyes felt heavy. Her chest even heavier. This delving and watching and reliving was tiring work and very rarely rewarded her with more answers than questions. She pulled the blanket at her feet until it settled up around her neck; letting her eyes flutter shut for the first time in what felt like days.

Too far into falling into slumber was Clarke when she heard the voice. Quiet at first. Distant. Until it felt like it was direct at her ear. Whispering soothing words and loving deceleration's. Too close to sleep was she to wake when the hand touched at her face. Pushed her hair behind her ear. Too far gone to register Lexa, swathed in casual clothes, falling asleep beside her.


	4. A MONSTER

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 23/11/2017   
> or......did i?

_I loved her._

_I still love her, though I curse her in my sleep,_

_so nearly one are love and hate,_

_the two most powerful and devastating emotions_

_that control man, nations, life._

* * *

A week felt like a lifetime as she waited on Clarke.

She trained, in the meantime. Bided her time. She taught many classes with the younglings, with Aden.

And she paced, more than once, outside Death’s door; sometimes she could tell how vividly Clarke was seething, when pools of red wafted from the doors gaps like thick burning acid.

She had elected to take food up on more than one occasion, but become too much a coward to push through the final threshold. The guards had that duty instead. Still. She waited nearby. Made sure she had taken the food.

God. How weak she had become.

Finally though. She could wait no longer. Time demanded it. The drums from the North only grew louder as the days went on. And she feared for both their people lest she not pluck some courage.

When she stepped through the door, the colours that surrounded Clarke turned to look before the girl herself. Angry red daggers and blades and a shadowed snake that curled around her neck and throat.

She kept her distance. Wary. This was the God of Death she was dealing with after all. She explained the Summit. That her mother was here. That she would be returned safely. Oh how she made it sound like Clarke was a child. A bargaining chip. Inwardly she berated herself.

Clarke knew this too. Her colours could not control themselves. Turning from knives to cats that wandered about her feet and hissed in her direction before puddling into roiling waves that lapped back up Clarke’s legs.

“You’re angry Clarke, but I know you…”

No she didn’t. Not anymore. More than a month had crept by and the girl that stood before her now was not the one she had left on the side of the Mountain. All wild-tangles and dirtied fingers and scars that delved deep into once-soft skin. This was a wild-child. A daughter of the forest. And Death, her father.

“What you’ve done haunts you. And it’s easier to hate me, than to hate yourself.”

 “Oh I can do both”

She expected the reply. But how it ached. Like the knife she had already dug into her own heart was twisted further.

She dug around, pulled bunnies from hats and excuses too. She had to win this, for her people’s sake. Clarke’s too. Surely she could see that.

“Those deaths are on _you too_. Only difference is, you have no _honour_ and I had no _choice_.”

The colours changed at that. Weeping, crying blues and greys. Wrapping around Clarke like they were trying to console her. Invisible to the girl’s own eye. The same knives that had been turned to Lexa. Now turned inward. Stabbing at Clarke over and over again. Her heart ached.

Push, push, push. You have to win this. Make her understand. Make her see what you see. This is for the best.

“You can’t run away from who you are, Clarke.”

Of course.

Of course she would see through Lexa’s lies.

More time. She should have given her more time. Another week perhaps. No it couldn’t wait. Second guessing herself was no use.

Clarke was right. What she had done had shown her weakness. Those years she had spent since Costia’s death, proving herself to the savages of the North. All for naught when she had abandoned a war rightfully her own.

“Well if you want the power of _Wanheda._ Kill me, take it. Otherwise go fuck yourself, because I will _never_ bow to you.”

The angry tendrils and daggers had returned at full force. Desperately wanting to get at Lexa. Die, she imagined them screaming. Die. Die. Die.

Clarke turned. A dismissal. Lexa could not open her mouth. There were no other excuses. She left. Defeated and made weak yet again.

Titus, outside, begged to hear Wanheda’s answer. Silenced. Lexa would not have it. He already knew the answer. Spying. Always spying.

The steps of the tower were many and yet she found herself at the bottom of them in no time. The meeting would be drawn soon. It could wait. They were her subjects. They would wait if she pleased.

Her lungs burned. She wasn’t sure if she had taken a breath since she had left Clarke’s room.

Weaving through the foyer she broke out behind into the training grounds. A small grassed area closed in from every side except this. With her back against the door she shakily exhaled. Finally, her chest cried.

“ _Oh I can do both_ ”

How it ached.

* * *

When had Clarke last eaten?

What day was it?

The room, while perfect for this (whatever _this_ was), could not give her accurate readings of the day, nor time of it.

Her stomach grumbled indignantly as she shook her head free from the fuzz the chip always seemed to leave in its wake.

She was thinner now. Thinner than she had been whilst imprisoned on the Ark. No muscle-tone. No fat. Wasting away.

The latest delve into the world inside the little device had left her weak. Angry. Angry at Lexa. Angry at herself. That was not a scene she had wished to relive. And yet…

A knock at her door. A guard. A small Trikru boy far too young to be on the duty given to him. Perhaps thirteen at best. He smiled at her. Placed a tray of boiled eggs and smoked meat some distance away from her. His eyes were wary though. Looking at her like she was a kind of mystical animal.

When he didn’t leave quite as quick as he should have. Enraptured by her. Clarke smiled. He smiled back too. Ducking his quickly reddening face before scuttling back out the way he had come. The heavy door shut quickly. Not before Clarke had heard him spew admirations to his friends, though.

She was still Wanheda, it seemed. Two years after the fact.

Morning, she gathered, by the breakfast laid before her.

One hand still fiddled with the chip. Letting its tendrils curl up around her fingers and smooth along her palm. The other took pieces of venison and eggs in dirty, messy clumps and shoved them in her mouth. Not like anyone could see her eat anyway.

When she had finished the tray. Pushed roughly aside. Her attention turned back to the device below. It had waited for her. Could have easily sucked her in mid mouthful and left her hungry and her food, cold.

Now though, now it thrummed, tightening its coils around her fingers, pulling her in closer before…

This world went dark.

* * *

Her talk with Titus had left a sour taste on her tongue. He had been good to her, for the most part. Never kind. But good. He had taught her a great many things since she had ascended some years ago. Had been there to quell her anger when Costia’s head had been returned like it were nothing.

But he was short-sighted. Obsessed. All he could see was the Flame and none of the person holding it. Four Commanders and she were the strongest of them all, he said. Grovelling. Pushing and pulling. Like he were a puppeteer.

She though. Lexa was no puppet.

Clarke had called for her and she answered. Taking the steps of the tower two at a time until she was on her floor. The guards saluted. Reaching out to open the doors for her without preamble. Not even a knock.

“You wanted to see me? I’m here”

Lexa had always prided herself on being able to tell a person’s intentions. Even when the world was grey, anger still shone through. Clarke was still angry. Seething. The floor around her was soaked in red.

“Clarke?”

She should not have stepped forward. Not opened herself up like that. Foolish, her head chided. Foolish little girl.

The knife at her throat was cold. Sharp. She could feel her blood beneath it, thrumming. Small beads dropped out, not enough to scar.

The colours though. God, the colours. How magnificent. She had not seen them like this. Never.

Behind Clarke. Around Clarke. Touching and moving and weaving. Every colour of the rainbow warred among them. Twisting around and joining, mixing. Exploding off into the sky like the worlds before fireworks.

Clarke’s eyes moved. Darted. Looking at Lexa. Into Lexa. Her lips trembled.

“I’m sorry”

Blue washed over Clarke in an instant. Dousing the angry reds with hissing steam. Tears pricked at her eyes. A choking breath and the shake of a head. The colours mourned for her. For them. And then she pushed Lexa away. Turning. The knife clanged against the floor and was swarmed by the sobbing puddles of blues and greys and purples.

“I never meant to turn you into this”

Hidden was, sorry, please forgive me. I loved you and left you and made you into a Monster. A creature to be feared.

“You’re free to go”

She turned. Blues waved off Clarke and infected the area around them. Reaching out towards Lexa like desperate childish hands. Come back. Please come back.

And another, brighter colour. A red that was light, flowing. Spreading from Clarke’s chest and down her arms. Lexa, for the second time in her short stay with the girl, nay Woman, before her. Saw the world returned to colour.

“Wait, I have a better idea”

Her heart jumped at the sight of it.


End file.
